Crispy Lamb & Rice with Asparagus, Peas & Feta
Plus, more lessons in stillness
Today we’re making an easy weeknight dinner that tastes like spring in a bowl. With crispy lamb and rice, sweet peas and asparagus, pockets of creamy feta, a bright hit of lemon and spice, and freshness from mint and dill, it’s a one-skillet minute meal that comes together in just thirty minutes.
Happy Friday, friends!
I was on a walk with my friend Heather a few weeks ago, and she mentioned that she recently started buying frozen rice, which has become a weeknight savior for her on busy weeknights (she can make fried rice in minutes). I started thinking about other ways to use frozen rice, which inspired today’s recipe. It’s simple and streamlined but vibrant with the flavors of spring.
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As you know if you’ve been hanging around here, this spring has been all about simplifying for me, which I’ve talked about here and here and here. It’s a cycle I can’t seem to stop. Every time I decide I need more, life tell me, less. How often have I tried to complicate things just for the drama of it all? Oh honey, too many to count.
The day before I photographed this recipe, I was in my weekly group with Natalie Deeb and mentioned how right my life was feeling simple and spacious... And maybe boring? “I’m thinking about signing up for a class or doing something crazy,” I said. My mind was getting itchy with all this simplicity. Let’s shake things up!
Natalie looked at me gently and asked, “What if instead of running, you simply stayed in the stillness.”
Crap.
I’ve been talking about simplifying all season—and have physically and emotionally simplified many areas of my life—and yet it’s still hard for my mind. We’re so conditioned to believe that it’s what we do that matters most. We’re told that for something to have worth it should be complicated and full of effort and struggle.
But what if that’s not the only way?
A curious thing about all this simplifying over the past month and a half is that I haven’t gotten any less work done. I’ve been developing, testing and photographing recipes, planning the design and photo shoots for my new book, writing this newsletter, updating the blog, recording and producing the podcast, planning new content, doing my taxes and admin stuff, etc etc. The work has still gotten done, and yet it’s happened with so much flow that it hasn’t seemed much like “work” at all.
That makes me cringe. I want to backpedal and say that I’m absolutely WORKING HARD and that life is HARD and that we will PUSH TO THE END! But it just isn’t true right now (but to be clear—sometimes work and life are hard, and sometimes we do have to push to the end).
Can I be okay with just floating? Can I feel my own worth, even without struggle?
I’m trying.
(It actually feels really good, when I let it.)
The day after Natalie asked me that question I photographed this recipe. Actually, that day is today, a few weeks before this will hit your inbox. I’m sitting here at my kitchen counter writing this essay with an empty bowl of the rice and lamb in front of me, surrounded by remnants from the shoot. Somehow all of this feels full circle. This recipe, which I intentionally created using frozen rice as a way of streamlining things, is reminding me that simplicity can be full of flavor and dynamism. Stillness only gets boring when I’m not present.
There are about six birds garbling on the patchy lawn outside my screen door. The sunlight today is slanting through the open window. A bundle of tulips from our CSA, standing like a group of ballerinas, is peering gracefully down at me. The smell of fresh mint is lingering. There’s nothing boring about this moment. My heart is open. My belly is full. This is enough.
Invitation
Perhaps this week we can invite more simplicity into our days. The kitchen is a great place to start. Let’s move a bit more slowly, streamlining our menus and meals in order to give ourselves more time for stillness—to just be. To feel our own worth without needing any actions or outcomes to prove it. Of course, this might mean opting not to cook at all, but I’m assuming you’re reading this newsletter because you enjoy being in the kitchen (at least some of the time). Below are some streamlined recipes that might bring a bit more spaciousness to your week.
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Crispy Lamb & Rice with Asparagus, Peas & Feta
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